Leonard: Odell Beckham Jr., polo shirt and all, is taking pains to prove he has matured into a player worth his pay day

New York’s gossip page editors will be disappointed to hear that Odell Beckham Jr. celebrated signing his $95 million contract extension on Monday subtly. He told the Daily News Tuesday that he went out for a “quiet dinner” at Morton’s Steakhouse with a couple of people who matter most: agent Zeke Sandhu and his mom, Heather Van Norman.

“She had a good time,” Beckham said with a smile of his mother, as if that was what was most important to him in the moments immediately following the largest success of his young life.

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Let it be known, then, that Beckham spent his first night as a $100 Million Man (including his Nike contract) responsibly and maturely — which is doubly the expectation of Beckham now than it was prior to Monday because of his past, because of the organization he represents, and because of the money the Giants now have invested in him.

Odell Beckham Jr. is all smiles after his huge pay day, even donning an uncharacteristic white collared shirt.

Fair or not, while you or I would have rented out a Manhattan rooftop bar Monday night and partied until sunrise Tuesday, Beckham’s burden coming off an offseason of reckoning is to grow way past his 25 years of age into the mature leader on and off the field the Giants at times doubted he could be but are gambling and hoping he’ll become.

Beckham understands. The fashion-conscious star uncharacteristically wore a white, Giants team-issue DryFit golf shirt to the podium on Tuesday, and when asked if he had felt the need to demonstrate his maturity this offseason, Beckham tapped his chest and quipped: “You see this polo? Yeah, I’m growin’ up, man. I’m growin’ up.”

Translation: ‘See? I’ll do what they ask me to do. You think this is what I’d wear on my own? I’m a team player.’

Then again, barely 30 seconds after the press conference, Beckham hadn’t even gotten back inside the Giants facility before yanking off the polo in favor of a T-shirt that was more ‘him.’

No big deal; just good symbolism of how Beckham is very much a Giant but always will remain himself.

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And John Mara and the Giants love a lot about Beckham the person and player. They’re just hoping he can contain and harness the emotion and energy that define him but also sometimes get him in trouble. And listening to Mara on Tuesday, it was clear the Giants co-owner recognizes it’s a gamble as much as anyone.

“You see this polo? Yeah, I’m growin’ up, man. I’m growin’ up.”

Odell Beckham Jr.

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For Mara first said of Beckham: “I think he’s matured quite a bit, and I think that stuff hopefully is in the past. And I think he’s ready to go on and be the type of player and citizen that we expect him to be. And I think he will be.”

Later, though, Mara allowed that Beckham is going to be Beckham, and expressed hope that Beckham doesn’t do “anything else that’s going to embarrass him or us.”

“He’s always gonna be a high energy guy,” Mara said of Beckham. “He’s always going to be an emotional guy. It’s just our hope that he keeps those emotions in check. I’m sure there are gonna be some instances where he gets excited, and hopefully he’s gonna keep it within the grounds of not incurring a penalty or doing anything else that’s going to embarrass him or us. But he’s 25, I think he’s moving in the right direction, and he wants to be here. He’s really excited about being a part of this team.”

Beckham isn’t naive, though. He’s evolved to understand that he has made mistakes in his past, which is part of why he spent this offseason in such deep reflection, motivated also by the fear of losing football due to his broken ankle.

“Honestly, I’m not so — say proud of (every)thing that’s ever happened,” Beckham said, “but I’m able to take everything that’s happened (to) me and make myself into a man and learn from those mistakes and be able to look myself in the mirror and have to deal with those things.”

Beckham’s past mistakes, remember, resulted in the Giants talking to the L.A. Rams about a potential trade in March. Mara finally admitted to those conversations Tuesday.

“Are we gonna listen to phone calls when they come in? Yeah, of course you’re gonna do that,” Mara said of the spring. “I think it’d be irresponsible not to. But it was always our intention that he be a part of this.”

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Beckham’s contract extension was not an inevitable or easily-achieved end result, regardless of what you want to believe or how often you hear that opinion floated or asserted as fact.

Beckham even admitted that while he trusted his agent and the Giants to get a deal done, as he did his own part reporting to workouts and practices: “I can’t say that I wasn’t worried about it because it was in the back of (my) head. There’s no way that you can’t not worry about it.”

And Mara acknowledged that, even though Beckham did not exercise his greatest leverage and hold out, the prospect of a Week 1 standoff as the regular season got underway wouldn’t have been good for the team or player.

“I think it was important because we didn’t want it to be a distraction,” Mara said of getting it done before Jacksonville. “We didn’t want it hanging over him. We didn’t want him worried about what if I get hurt, I’m not gonna be protected. So I think that was important to get it done before he actually started playing in games.”

Coach Pat Shurmur also undoubtedly was a voice nudging this forward, something Mara acknowledged when he said: “Pat obviously desperately wanted him on the team this year. He said to me back at the beginning of training camp: ‘No. 13 is pretty good, ya know?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think we were aware of that, Pat.’”

Mara did say the Giants deliberated whether to pay Beckham now or “give him another year to prove himself. But he came in with the right attitude, his energy level has been (through) the roof, and he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do.”

Particularly, while Mara let coach Pat Shurmur and Beckham determine that OBJ would sit out the preseason, Mara interestingly said Beckham’s participation and performance in split-squad practices with the Lions in Detroit two weeks ago convinced him that Beckham had fully bought in.

“When he went out to Detroit and took part in those practices and was full speed and looked great, he was ready to go and we were satisfied that he was healthy and had the right attitude,” Mara said.

Meanwhile, Beckham had grown to accept last year’s articulated goal of being the highest-paid player in the entire league wasn’t realistic, as the Atlanta Falcons signed franchise QB Matt Ryan for five years, $150 million in May.

“You see Matt Ryan get his contract and then you have to snap back to reality and be realistic,” Beckham said. “He came and set the bar very high, so it just was a matter of getting what you feel like you earned and deserved, and I think it’s very fair on both ends what we’ve done here.”

“Are we gonna listen to phone calls when they come in? Yeah, of course you’re gonna do that.”

John Mara on spring trade calls

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Beckham still set a new bar for wide receivers, though as Mara slipped in Tuesday, the contract only makes Beckham “the highest-paid wide receiver for now” — a nod to the fast-growing market eclipsing OBJ’s marks in the near future.

Those metrics mattered to Beckham, too — don’t think they didn’t. But again, if there is anything Beckham wanted more this offseason than a contract, it was to get back on the field this fall, and to win. And now, he is on the verge of chasing his biggest dreams.

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“This is kind of just something that you get out of the way,” Beckham said of the contract. “Honestly, it sounds crazy enough, but I don’t think I’ve done anything really since I’ve been here. I have goals for myself.

“I don’t think I have truly been able to achieve them even with the success that I’ve had,” the star receiver continued, his blonde locks flopping above his smile. “It’s not really where I want to be. Before I was even in the NFL, I wanted to be legendary. Yeah, the money is great, you can take care of your family, you can take care of kids one day that you’ll possibly have. But my goal was always to be in the Hall of Fame, to win trophies, to be able to leave a legacy that will be remembered way past any money that you make.”

Pat Leonard is the Giants/NFL beat writer and columnist. He has worked at the Daily News since May 2010 and covered the NHL's Rangers for five seasons. Pat graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2006.